USING GRASSHOPPER WITH
BUCKMINSTER FULLER DOMES
STA Project, Spring 2011
Faculty Member: Daniel Lopez-Perez
STA: Devon Morris
PROJECT DESCRIPTION

Last year, Professor Lopez-Perez and I used
Grasshopper (a plug-in for the program Rhino) to
create one of Buckminster Fuller’s surface domes.
This year, our goal was to further our knowledge
on Grasshopper as well as create the 31-Circle
model, which is the base of many other models.
OBSTACLES ENCOUNTERED
One of the biggest obstacles we had was through
working with different computers and people, we
would have different versions of Grasshopper
which would sometimes be unusable on certain
computers.
 There was also the struggle of creating the circles
accurately. We were basing our model off of a
drawing, which was then recreated into Rhino
which was then recreated into Grasshopper –
creating a rather high margin of error for a few of
the circles and their intersecting points.

PART 1
The first part of the semester, I was able to attend
a workshop that taught a lot of information
regarding Grasshopper. It was a great experience
to go to. Even though last year I worked with
Grasshopper, my understanding of it was on the
surface level, but the workshop taught me a
deeper understanding of the mechanics which
helped me throughout the rest of the semester.
PART 2
The next part of our project was to create the
multitude of circles, which we did in Rhino.
Using these circles as a guide, we created a single
circle in Grasshopper and rotated copies of it so
that it would fit inline with the Rhino version.
We repeated this until all 31 Circles were
created.
The Grasshopper commands for the circles.
PART 3
Next, from these circles, I used Grasshopper to find
the intersections where I would place a point.
These points would therefore always stay where
two circles intersect.
Grasshopper command for the intersections.
PART 4

Finally, I connected each adjacent three points
with surfaces – filling out the sphere with a
collection of triangles. Triangles were used
because they’re always flat, whereas a rectangle
could be curved by accident.
Grasshopper command for the surfaces
There were a few areas that had problems, but
with what I had learned from the initial
workshop, I was able to overcome them. Much of
these issues related to how Grasshopper
organizes data lists and having to rearrange
them to my liking.
The finished product is not just the 31-Circle Dome
but also a surfaced variation of it as well. These
two models can be altered to one’s liking, and still
the surfaces connect on their own.
The complete Grasshopper command. Incredibly
dense since each of these interact with each
other.